Colm Kelly, Blair Sheppard

A healthy economy needs a healthy society, just as a healthy society needs a healthy economy. This is one of the defining lessons of the period since the end of World War II. It has long served business and policymakers well to create the conditions for this commonality of interest. Now is the time for the system to be realigned, once again as throughout human … [ Read more ]

Colm Kelly, Blair Sheppard

Financial performance is an essential element underpinning any market economy, but it cannot be the only measure of performance or success in a globalized economy. Other, broader measures, reflecting target outcomes in societal terms, must also be considered. We need to focus on managing the duality of GDP growth (at a national level) and shareholder returns (at a firm level) along with meeting a broader … [ Read more ]

Colm Kelly, Blair Sheppard

Since Alexis de Tocqueville published Democracy in America in 1835, economic success has been presumed to be linked to social progress. The shareholder–owner lived in the same town, went to the same market, and attended the same place of worship as the rest of the citizenry. Business success was intrinsically linked to the success of the community or society within which it operated. This linkage … [ Read more ]

Common Purpose: Realigning Business, Economies, and Society

Today’s economic and political upheavals reflect an ongoing misalignment between business and economies (on the one hand) and acceptable societal outcomes (on the other). There is still time to adjust, if we are willing to reexamine some long-held assumptions.

Reshaping Business Education in a New Era

Blair Sheppard, dean of Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, discusses how the expectations of MBA students are changing—and why the traditional MBA education needs to change as well.